Lashings of editing jolly bad for Blyton books

Phrases like "awful swotter" and "mercy me!" look set to vanish from children's vocabularies for good, with publishers announcing they are re-editing Enid Blyton's classic books.

The publishers of Blyton's children's books, such as the Famous Five series and Faraway Tree series, say they are erasing some words and phrases from the novels to replace them with modern versions.

Words and phrases reportedly getting the chop include "house mistress", which will be replaced with "teacher", "school tunic" which will be pasted over with "uniform" and "dirty tinker", which now becomes "traveller".

But children's literature experts say it is tragic that these expressions could be lost forever.

Children's Book Council president Maj Kirkland told ABC Radio that the language in Enid Blyton's books is unique and loved by children.

"Well we could say let's not stop with Enid Blyton, why not change Shakespeare?" she said.

She says language is specific a time and place and is defined by the context in which it is used.

Ms Kirkland says children understand this.

"My son loved the Faraway Tree. He enjoyed the words as well and he used to walk around the house saying 'awful swotter'," she said.

"Young people are often underestimated.

"Children don't always have to know exactly what the word means to enjoy the sound of those words."

Ms Kirkland says language is constantly being changed and she says efforts should be made to retain historical works.

"We're in a state of change so much. We have text language that we use on Twitter and how quickly does that change?" she said.

She says strange words used in Blyton's novels actually help children expand their vocabulary and become better communicators.

"It's a good chance for the adult and the child to talk about what it meant at the time," she said.

"They do build their vocabulary and build their understanding of the world."

She says if the books are going to be changed in any way the publishers could instead publish a glossary at the end of Blyton's books to explain unfamiliar words.